1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improved autonomic installation in computing systems. In particular, the present invention relates to an install program that filters the list of available install items presented to a user and more particularly to filtering, by a software provider install program, a list of available install items for an application based on a consumer's install policy pointed to by a configurable install policy setting within the software provider install program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Autonomic computing systems focus on developing distributed networks that are largely self-managing, self-diagnostic, and transparent to users. Conventional software installation techniques, however, are not very autonomic and often require intense user intervention. In particular, when software developers distribute applications or patches to applications, software developers will often provide an install program to control installation or application of patches and other installable items to a computer system. These install programs, however, typically either automatically apply the entire application package or patch set or require a user to manually select which portions of an application package to install or patches to apply.
In one attempt at a more automated installation solution, a software provider may also provide an install program that applies a policy, set by the software provider, that requires determining which patches are available for installation to a particular computer system and scanning the particular computer system to compile a list of already installed patches, before presenting the user with a filtered choice of patches that are available, but not already installed. In addition, the software provider may further specify the policy with particular patches assigned as having a higher priority by the software provider. Based on the user's manual selection of patches from the choice of patches, the install program downloads and applies the user selected patches. Alternatively, a user may select to automatically install the choice of patches.
Many customers, particularly customers who run large networks of computers, will end up manually selecting only a portion of the available application package or patches in testing the effects of new patches on the stability of a particular computer system or a network of computer systems. Further, many customers, once it has been determined which patches will not disrupt the stability of a particular computer system or network of computer systems, only want to apply the customer-determined selection of patches.
Thus, while an install program that applies a policy set by the software provider to present the user with a filtered choice of patches may reduce the number of selectable patch options, for a larger customer, who installs an application across multiple systems, and wants to customize the selection of patches applied to the application across those multiple systems, the update function does not improve the autonomic installation process. For example, a software provider provides three patches, A, B, and C for an application D. Within a customer's network of multiple systems, application D is already installed on each system, but patches A, B, and C are not already applied to the installed application. For the customer to apply only patches A and B at each of the multiple systems, the customer will have to run the install program on each individual system and within the choice of patches presented, of patches A, B, and C, manually select only patches A and B for install. This process of the user running the install program on each system and then manually selecting patches A and B from a list of patches becomes exponentially more time consuming as the number of systems and number of applications, each with multiple patches, increases.
In addition, while an install program that applies a policy set by the software provider presents the user with the software provider's prioritization of the filtered choice of patches, a software provider's priorities are not necessarily those of the customer. Thus, while the software provider may indicate to the customer those patches within the filtered choice of patches the software provider deems most important, a customer is still only provided with an option of manually selecting patches, at each system, from a choice of patches filtered according to the software provider's priorities.
Therefore, to provide a more autonomic installation solution, there is an ongoing need for method, systems, and products for enabling a consumer to specify an install policy and enabling a customer to configure an install program to access and apply that install policy as the install program selects a filtered choice of install items, such as patches, available for installation at a particular system, such that the customer's install policy is reusable across multiple systems at which the install program may run and the customer's install policy directs the filtering of install options to automatically provide the customer with a customer-determined selection of install items from among the available install items.